Nuclear icebreaker now a luxury hotel

by William ASTON on July 27, 2009

N S Lenin, the Soviet icebreaker launched in 1957 was both the world’s first nuclear powered surface ship and the first nuclear powered civilian vessel. It took 3.5 years to build and it began service in 1959, being officially decommissioned in 1989.

In May, the “Lenin” arrived at the port of Murmansk, her final destination for conversion into a museum expected to be completed this summer.

Back in 1957, the crew enjoyed long corridors full of light, single and double cabins with hot and cold water and a beautiful companion cabin, a club and a day room equipped with TV sets, a cinema, a library with a reading room and several dining rooms, a smoking room with an electric fire.

Its air conditioning system was almost an unprecedented comfort. There were several medical rooms with the most modern equipment of the era - a therapeutic room, a stomatologic room treating diseases of the mouth, an x-ray room, a physiotherapeutic room, an operating room, a room for medical procedures, a laboratory and a drugstore.

The ‘Lenin’ also had its own personal service shops - a shoemaker and a tailor, a hairdresser, laundry, sauna and bakery.

In addition to the museum and hotel, the vessel will be fitted with a restaurant, a sport and recreation centre, a conference hall and a business centre. The hotel will boast rooms that spell luxury and the museum will house an exhibition on the history of Russia’s icebreaker fleet and an observation post where visitors can peek at the reactor compartment.